While most industries and companies offering online shopping experiences to consumers, the automobile industry is one of the last to offer an way to purchase a car entirely online without ever visiting a dealer.

Joydrive OEM LLC hopes to be that solution with a platform that allows consumers to complete the entire car buying process online and have their vehicle delivered to their residence or workplace.

Founded in 2016, Joydrive partners with dealerships to offer new and used cars through its website.

Hunter Gorham, founder and chief executive officer, sought to find a solution to what he believes to be the single biggest friction point in the automobile industry: the car buying experience.

Customers can shop cars online, view an in-depth background check verified by AutoCheck, work with dealerships through the Joydrive platform to secure financing or get a trade-in offer if needed and put a $500 refundable deposit down to have the vehicle delivered on the customers day and time of choice.

The Raleigh-based company allows customers a five-day return period if they are not happy with their vehicle. The platform lists one price and does not allow haggling.

Completing the puzzle

Joydrive is the first online marketplace of its kind in the $600 billion automobile industry, allowing customers to choose from a collection of new and used cars in their geographic region.

While other online retailers such as Carvana offer similar services, Joydrive is the only platform that allows customers to purchase new cars online.

“We’ve completed the puzzle so to speak,” Gorham said. “Joydrive is complete turnkey.”

The company currently sells 16 car brands including the majority of all major market and high-volume brands. Joydrive is working on expanding into the luxury brand market.

Joydrive attracts dealers to sell through the platform by offering them a new way to reach their customers.

“Our dealers that we’re talking to are very successful selling through brick-and-mortar and separately there is this other pool of customers that are looking for a different experience,” Gorham said. “Why not reach both of these channels, so to speak?”

Gorham believes dealers can use Joydrive to expand their customer base, attracting the demographic that wants an online experience in addition to their current customers who prefer shopping in person.

“There is also a growing pool of customers that are in the middle – fence sitters so to speak,” he said. “They are buying in dealership now but man, they would love an online experience.”

Joydrive does not charge customers a fee for purchasing through the platform. Instead, dealers pay the company a fee for being members on the network.

“We’re very select about dealers we allow to be on Joydrive,” Gorham said. “We have excellent dealers who are excited about offering a very simple, transparent experience.”

Ready for expansion

While most of the company’s technology is housed in Raleigh, Joydrive’s operations team works out of Seattle.

Between full-time employees and long-term agency employees in technology and advertising who solely work with Joydrive, the company employs about 20 individuals.

Currently, the platform is available to customers in the Pacific Northwest, where Joydrive has built up a large network of dealer partnerships.

“When we began developing we knew we needed both an east coast and a west coast presence,” Gorham said. “We’re going to be a national footprint, so we wanted both.”

Joydrive chose the Pacific Northwest to roll out its platform because it had a significant amount of inventory there after testing the model in Washington initially.

The company plans to add dealers and expand first in the Carolinas, Florida and Texas, eventually expanding nationwide into all major U.S. markets.

“Texas is sort of ground zero for auto by market share by state,” Gorham said.

Growth and marketing strategy

The company recently debuted a Super Bowl commercial in the Seattle-Tacoma market that aired twice, among a number of other digital and in-person marketing strategies.

“One of the things that’s been really special to us is we don’t have any negative reviews yet,” Gorham said. “Awareness is one of our biggest points – that’s the big issue we need to work on.”

Gorham said customer reviews have been highly positive, but awareness is the company’s biggest goal.

“Anytime we go into a new market we will do an explosion event,” he said. “In the Puget Sound we did two Super Bowl commercials – obviously that creates a massive amount of awareness and drives huge traffic to the site.”

The company focus on maintaining a heavy digital presence and being active in a variety of social media channels.

“We’re not selling deodorant or razors – this is the second biggest purchase for a customer,” Gorham said. “We need to maintain an active relationship with them.”

The company recently raised $500,000 in January, which Gorham said is only a small piece of Joydrive’s funding.

“We have funded Joydrive with multiple strategic investments, materially in excess of that,” he said.

The company used the money along with other funds to build out awareness with the consumer and expand the network in terms of new markets and more inventory.

Within two to three months, the company hopes to offer over 15,000 vehicles. It currently has an inventory of approximately 3,500 available through the website and will grow that to 5,000 shortly.

Gorham said the company is always looking at raising more money and that funding is strong and in place for future growth.

“I think that’s always something were looking at,” he said. “We have been very thoughtful in terms of who we allow to be a part of it – people we have in our ownership stack, they’re not just investors, they bring far more to bear then just funding.

Prior to Joydrive, Gorham spent 14 years working at Ally Financial, the largest automotive finance company in the country.

Gorham received his bachelor’s degree in finance and technology from Emory University and his MBA from Rice University.

While Gorham has not purchased a vehicle through the Joydrive platform, he said Chief Operating Officer Mike Fitzpatrick recently purchased a new Toyota through the website.